


Football is a Contact Sport

by delfina



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: Curbing Tactile Instincts, Hiding in Plain Sight, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:33:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29828448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delfina/pseuds/delfina
Summary: Robbo heads over, reaching for the wall as a pretext to jam his wrist into Trent's hip and hold it there. He knows that the younger man feels the same impact that says, ‘I’m here, aware of you, aware of all the ways I can't touch you right now.’
Relationships: Trent Alexander-Arnold/Andrew Robertson
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12





	Football is a Contact Sport

They used to touch a lot in public. The hugs, the piggybacks, the arms thrown over shoulders, the casual caresses. Things are different now. It's not only the infernal Covid rules, not only Trent's efforts to cultivate a slightly more grown-up image. They avoid gentler touches now, outside the safety of goal celebrations, as falling within a new danger zone of things that could attract attention, or even spiral out of control.

By unspoken agreement, their tactile interactions have moved onto a more indirect plane, the loss of intimacy and open affection compensated by a certain violence. One of them will hurtle across the training ground and barrel into the other, no embrace on the end of it, just the shock of bones cushioned by skin and a few layers of clothing: a ribcage against an arm, one hip against another, an elbow into a shoulder. Or they will stand close, talking and laughing, with or without the other lads, one foot discreetly slotted against another, or Robbo's arm bisecting Trent's, pressing hard, hard enough to be uncomfortable.

They can't actually hurt each other, of course, especially in this season of never-ending injuries – and they don't want to. Some bruising is allowed, a temporary record of the touches they can indulge in and carry home, away from the pitch, the training facility and the airport tarmac. Sometimes, in a rare private moment, Trent traces the marks on Andy's skin, cataloguing the ones he put there, fingertips light like the sea mist that lifts in the morning sun.

Hendo has noticed, enough to worry, though not enough that he’s worrying about the right things. He has taken them aside, separately, to talk about aggression and competitiveness, channelling feelings and harmony within the team. They nod and try to look contrite, or at least serious. They wonder at how he doesn't seem to have clocked the fact that they still joke together and talk incessantly, close as puppies at play, always within reach, knowing how each other's sentences will end when they’ve barely begun, able to have a whole conversation in glances. The evidence is there before his eyes and he’s not seeing it.

In the tunnel before kick-off, Trent is leaning against the wall talking to Diogo, and Robbo heads over, reaching for the wall as a pretext to jam his wrist into Trent's hip and hold it there. He knows that the younger man feels the same impact that says, ‘I’m here, aware of you, aware of all the ways I can't touch you right now.' He feels Trent cant his hip minutely in answer, eyes never leaving Diogo as he says something about Fifa ratings: a responding increase in pressure that says, 'Don't be jealous, I feel the same.'

It helps and it doesn't help. It's an outlet and a crude means of communication, misdirected want, disguised tenderness. It doesn't stop them from wanting other things, and sometimes arguably just winds them up more. (On one unbearable occasion, after beating Arsenal 3-1 at Anfield in late September, when Robbo even scored himself from Trent’s lovely lofted diagonal pass, after allowing himself to push insistently at Trent's lower back and fiddle with his jersey while celebrating the final goal… after all that, Trent pressed up against him outside the dressing room in a silent frenzy, his desperation digging, hot, into Robbo’s side. And they both had to stand there for what felt like long minutes, miserably hoping that no one would remark on anything odd, until the want subsided enough for Trent to walk away.) It's hardly sustainable as a situation, but they don't know what else to do.

Relief comes, all too infrequently, in the faceless, impersonal hotel rooms of away matches, and sometimes, to a degree, on the half-lit journeys of late coaches back to Merseyside. Even more than the sex, it’s the opportunity, for once, to forgo the hard jostling and frustratingly minimal contact. To slip one hand quietly into another, or to hold luxuriously onto each other as if they could grip time itself in the vice of their arms, and keep it there, suspended.


End file.
